The brutes behind EastEnders expect us to wait until 2015 to find out who killed Lucy, which makes us want to cry (Picture: BBC)

If you, like us, are rocking silently in the corner of your living room at the thought of having to wait until next year to find out who clobbered Lucy Beale, then you, like us, will relish a bit of speculation.

Of course, everyone knows who the most likely suspects are: the jilted lover (Max), his apoplectic daughter (Lauren), the green-eyed twin (Peter), the frustrated father (Ian), the army boy squeeze (Lee), his former squeeze (Whitney), the knocked-up teenage stepsister with a predilection for illicit activity (Cindy Jnr), and the creepy drunk chef often found bedding down in the victim’s father’s restaurant kitchen (Jake).

But we’re really hoping EastEnders’ writers don’t bow to social pressures (and basic good sense) when choosing their perpetrator, instead thinking a bit more creatively and regurgitating one of these fruity characters from the past as the real killer…

1. The old Lucy Beale

Actress Melissa Suffield spent six years playing Lucy Beale before being ousted from the show by Hetti Bywater in 2010, after it was reported that her wild partying ways were getting increasingly out of hand.

After last week’s murder the 21-year-old appeared on Twitter saying she would be sure to toast the event, which is basically a confession.

Old Lucy. Definitely scarier than the new Lucy. (Picture: BBC)

2. Cindy Beale

Lucy’s mother may have died in childbirth while in prison, but did anyone ever actually see her body? Plus, when she was alive she was about as robust as a cockroach during the apocalypse.

Something tells us she’s hidden in the wings. Watch out for peroxide blonde hairs and a smoker’s cough in the alley behind the Vic.

This would certainly be the most Shakespearean of the solutions (Picture: BBC)

3. Sanjay and Gita

For the lolz.

Gita certainly had a pair of lungs on her – ‘SANJAY!’ – but did she have a pair of murderous hands, too? (Picture: BBC)

4. Grant Mitchell

We know Lucy had developed a penchant for the follicly challenged male, and what with Phil being guarded 24/7 by Sharon (shudder), Grant was really her best option. Plus, once a thug…

Max, Lee, Grant – could this have been Lucy’s holy trinity of hairless men? (Picture: BBC)

5. Zainab Masood

The fieriest temper in east London is currently taking time out from her corner shop counter in Pakistan, but even from afar she can’t be best-pleased about her ex-husband Masood taking-up once again with Jane, Lucy’s stepmother.

But Zainab is pretty cunning: the death of Jane would directly implicate her, but Lucy’s would leave no one pointing fingers in her direction. Not to mention that taking down Lucy would be much easier: like a full-grown rhino sitting on a mosquito.

Zainab was always one to take matters/necks into her own hands (Picture: Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)

The baby born in 2004 to teenage parents Demi Miller and her boyfriend Leo Taylor would be 10 years old now, which is about the average age of an EastEnders murderer, isn’t it, Ben Mitchell?

Aleesha was taken to the Cotswolds by her mother and granny when Leo died of a heroin overdose, so she’s probably been lusting after some city excitement for a while now.

Aleesha as a baby with her late father and the mother who took her off to the boring old Cotswolds (Picture: BBC)

8. Courtney Mitchell

Three actresses have played this mischievous little drama queen, the daughter of Grant Mitchell and the late Tiffany Mitchell. Upon her last return to Albert Square she even managed to wind up Ben Mitchell, that murderous little prison inmate, so we know she’s good at bullying people.

She’s currently in Portugal with her dad. Or so they’d have us believe….

Ian’s ill-fated third (fourth?) wife was treated like a doormat by the Beale patriarch, fell down the stairs to her death while trying to answer the door to him, and had her son adopted by his seventh (eighth?) wife, Jane.

If there’s a ghost with a Beale-shaped vendetta in Walford, it’s Laura.

Ghost with a grudge? (Picture: BBC)

10. Ethel’s dog Willy

Small pug. Carried in bags. Suspicious-looking. Bookie’s favourite.

Willy appeared in EastEnders from 1985 to 1992, so certainly knows all the best hiding places (Picture: BBC)

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